


The Future States Of Both

by rain_sleet_snow



Category: A Civil Contract - Georgette Heyer, HEYER Georgette - Works
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-07
Updated: 2015-01-07
Packaged: 2018-03-06 14:29:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3137762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rain_sleet_snow/pseuds/rain_sleet_snow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brough asks Lydia what she thinks. (He’s the only one who does.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Future States Of Both

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DesertVixen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesertVixen/gifts).



> Written for fandom_stocking last year, for DesertVixen. (I really hope you're the same desertvixen as on Dreamwidth!)
> 
> All tragedies are ended by a death,/All comedies are ended by a marriage;/The future states of both are left to faith. – Byron, Don Juan.

            “Nobody has asked me what I think,” Lydia says, aimlessly toying with a rose in the garden. Since she is Lydia, she is not delicately stroking its petals, or admiring its beauty; she is playing that old nursery game, _he loves me, he loves me not, he loves me, he loves me not_ -

 

            Her lips are forming the words when Brough finally speaks, she has become so distracted.

 

            “What do you think?”

 

            “I think she will make him happy,” Lydia tells him. The petals fall from her fingers to the soil. She loves him, she loves him not – but that has never been in question; Lydia is a girl, not a fool. She sees the look in Jenny’s eyes more clearly than anyone, except, perhaps, Lady Oversley. “I think someone who – who wants to make someone happy as much as Jenny wants to make Adam happy – someone as clever, and loving, and willing to _listen_ as Jenny – can hardly fail. Don’t you?”  


            Brough tilts his head to one side. “I have seen it done.”

 

            She thanks Heaven that she is merely a girl, a schoolroom miss of no account, or they could not have this conversation, for her mother would be at her elbow. She has few serious things to say, and all of them are important; she would not have them go unsaid. “But Jenny is clever. She knows Adam does not love her. She does not expect that he will. I –”

 

            She chokes on her words, and Brough merely waits.

 

            “I think that is sad.” Lydia drops more rose petals. He loves her, he loves her not; they will have to wait and see. “But I think he will come to his senses. I hope he will. In any case, he - he is always kind. I hope, for Jenny’s sake, that will be enough.”

           

            “Adam is not stupid,” Brough assures her. “Only in love.”

 

            “They are the same thing, are they not?” She smiles brightly at him. She has run out of serious things to say, or better ways to explain the ones she has said, and if he does not understand she cannot help him.

 

            “Do you really think so?”

 

            Lydia looks Brough in the eyes, and is temporarily stunned. “I,” she stutters, “I… _Ow_!”

 

            She has cut herself on a thorn; her finger is bleeding. Hastily, she draws out a pocket handkerchief and presses it to the wound, sending a silent prayer of thanksgiving – that she does not have to address what she has just heard from Brough, that she need not answer what she has just seen in his face, that she may learn to understand what about that her own heart responded to, and that her mother always makes her carry a handkerchief.

 

            “You are hurt,” Brough says. There is warmth and concern in his voice that she had not noticed before, or thought only a kindness to his friend’s sister.

 

            “A scratch,” she says, looking at the rose, not him. I love him, I love him not…

 

            She draws a breath, and then another. The sky has not cracked and fallen at her feet, and she has not had even one Season yet. She has time to think this through.

 

            She favours Brough with her brightest smile. “I must return to my mother.”

 

           

            Lydia’s wedding dress is pale yellow; Lydia insisted on the colour. She wears the coral parure that Jenny gave her on her engagement, courtesy of Jonathan Chawleigh’s goodwill and Adam’s good taste (Adam is really very sorry he missed her engagement party, and in the circumstances, she can hardly complain).

 

            She carries yellow roses to the altar.

           


End file.
